Hi all - bet you are wondering what is going on at this point. The short answer is I did not know exactly how to proceed until now, finally having an idea of my employment situation.

I have talked to some people (in the forums, email, and elsewhere) about the current status but otherwise apologize for the silence. Basically for the past month I have been busy hunting for jobs and doing associated prep work or tasks. I also tried to get VQ funded via other means (licensing) but that did not work out. I am moving on to a fulltime job, so I am deciding to cancel the Patreon (and I will refund everyone's money here and elsewhere, of course). I don't feel right taking money when I probably won't have much time or energy to devote to the project.

The good news is that I am making all of Voxel Quest fully open source (MIT or similar, every iteration of the engine will be available), and I am doing a little bit of work to make things ready for this (I am even attempting to buy rights to the sprite sheet that Voxel Quest uses, which is a 3rd party asset). Stay tuned for more on this. I can't express how thankful I am that you chose to support me, and I hope that the years of work I put into VQ and all its source will be a small token of my gratitude. I will probably cancel my Patreon before the next pledge cycle so you don't need to necessarily manage your pledge, it should be automatically canceled soon. The Patreon peaked at $450/month, which I am really surprised at, although I expressed concern with starting it in the first place and turns out those concerns were valid. I will also soon organize a method for refunds (both for Patreon and everything else). Any questions or concerns, as usual, do not hesitate to contact me. Again, my goal is to keep everyone happy so let me know what I can do in that respect.

I am not fully abandoning VQ - I will attempt to provide as much support as I reasonably can to help people understand the source, and I will also probably chip in on the github repository every so often. But overall I will not be making great strides in the short term. I am hoping that someone can eventually make a commercial product with it, and that might kick up interest a bit.

For those curious, I am soon going to start contracting at OpenAI, with potential to move full time.

*Again, I stress that refunds are not required, but if anyone wants one I am offering without judgement.​Additionally, I have read through all of the comments below and I continue to be blown away by people's enthusiasm. I am not replying individually because my website's comment handler is a pain to use for many entries.

Agree, keep the money - funding a Kickstarter involves risk and you were incredibly open and transparent about everything in the project. I'm happy to have my money go towards you open sourcing a project like this

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Ed R.

6/14/2016 11:47:52 am

I completely agree with tamat, I have seen a lot of the work you have done, it is great and has taught me a lot, and if you are going to open it with MIT, I will learn even more and I can easily say it is well worth it.

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ROFISH

6/14/2016 11:49:39 am

Same! The level of transparency is amazing and failing is just a rite of passage. Looking forward to the open source though!

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Bauglir

6/14/2016 11:51:39 am

I don't want any money back - I knew when I pledged that a Kickstarter isn't buying a product, it's supporting development, and the money I spent did that. If setting up some sort of backer survey to let people opt out of a refund isn't just more work you don't want to do (and I could easily see it being a tremendous hassle), I'd definitely appreciate some way to say "You don't owe me a thing".

Thanks for the work you put into this, and good luck.

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grownseed

6/14/2016 11:53:48 am

Please Gavan, keep the money!

Additionally, I'd be more than happy to keep giving to your Patreon if it means you can help around once you've open-sourced VQ. I'm sure answering questions and stuff would go a very long way, even if you no longer work on the code.

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Nzb

6/14/2016 11:58:45 am

You said you want to buy rights for 3rd party assets. Go ahead and use money from Patreon! I am almost certain no one will complain.

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SmartBadger

6/14/2016 12:04:25 pm

Looking forwards to getting my hands on the source, even if just to fiddle with it a bit until I break it :P
As with so many other people, I'd rather not have the money back. I'd like to think that, one day, you'll try your hand at some other grand scheme, and (given what I've seen of your work on VQ) it will be surprising and exciting and wonderful - and I don't think that crippling you financially will lead us to that any sooner.
Hell, even if you never lay your hand to another piece of code that comes my way, I still see my few quid as an investment in you and your future. You did well; I look forward to seeing where you end up.

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Clément

6/14/2016 12:17:02 pm

Count me in the "No refund needed" group!

When I pledged, I did it to support you, to see what you could do with these fun ideas. One of my main interests was the engine, and it has been a real pleasure to see it evolve this much! When you release the sources I will have everything I wished for, and more.

I wish you the very best for your next adventure :)

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coprolite

6/14/2016 12:22:13 pm

I knew this project was ambitious from the beginning, but I backed you because I believed you had the motivation and skill to do some innovative things. I wasn't wrong. I've loved watching your progress and am only sad to see it put on hold. I hope your engine continues to get some love in the future from somewhere. With some work it could be a fun sandbox game maker, imo. Keep my money.

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Ancient

6/14/2016 12:22:54 pm

Agreed don't require a refund, was just encouraging your work and open sourcing will be sufficient.

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Hugeknight

6/14/2016 12:33:14 pm

i backed this project a looong time ago.
i dont want my money back or anything.
just a question so is all we have now an Opensource engine by itself or is there some form of game with it?

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socko

6/14/2016 12:35:09 pm

I will spend however much time is required to hunt you down in person and forcefully give you the money back if you dare refund me.

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Eric

6/14/2016 12:38:14 pm

Open sourcing the project sounds like exactly the right move at this juncture. No complaints or requests for money back here.

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Aleko

6/14/2016 12:43:50 pm

Guys... the current patron amount is at $125. The best way to show our support is to increase the Patreon amount to a level that can sustain development. Just think how many people prepaid for Minecraft while it was still in development. And that was a one-time payment. That allowed Notch to leave his job, hire people, and get the project to production. So if we're serious about our support, we need to 1) become patrons, and 2) spread the word.

So... a thousand people at 5-10/month?

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QuantumFlux42

6/14/2016 12:48:26 pm

Just like others here, I would never want my money back. What I paid was to support you while you were developing, and I had plenty of chances to enjoy watching your streams during development process. I think making it open source is awesome and that alone is worth every penny.

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urmom

6/14/2016 12:56:11 pm

We've been through this already, you can keep your money! We're pledging because we want to; even if you aren't making surefire progress on the game, it's a risk each and every person who pledged was willing to take :)

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Morten

6/14/2016 01:10:43 pm

Keep the money. You tried to deliver on a dream project and it's tough. I have been there many times too. What you have done is amazing - I am so sorry it wasn't finalized but hopefully someone will move on, learning from your work. Thank you for your efforts. :)

No refund, please! You've created a huge amount of value (and given me my money's worth in interesting stuff to think about). Open-sourcing this project is the icing on the cake, and makes me hopeful that your work will live on, even if our society is still kind of in the dark ages and doesn't quite know how to reward or sustain the kind of work you've done.

I know having projects not work out the way you hoped sucks, but please don't see this as a failure. You have generated real value for lots of people in the world, and that's all the accomplishment anyone can hope for.

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Mark A Lee

6/14/2016 01:15:15 pm

Hi Gavin,

I backed you on kickstarter not because I wanted the game, but becasue it was a fresh and interesting idea... and because as a developer I understand the struggle of having something in your brain that you just need to get out. It has been really cool seing your creation develop. I am with the others. We gave you the money we gave you without expecting it back. Good luck in your job hunt. I look forward to foraging through the source!

If the project becomes open source, it's one more reason for you keep my money.

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bumbleshrimp

6/14/2016 02:55:46 pm

Gavan, please keep my contributions, it's worth every penny to have this kind of code made open source for me to learn from and play with. I'd actually feel very uncomfortable with you returning it, as you did years of work and actually delivered a product (although not the product you'd hoped, its a good enough product for my money).

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AttakShark

6/14/2016 03:31:24 pm

Like many others said, keep the money Gavan. No need to refund. We backed this project to support you while you developed the game, and that's what happened. Sure the game is not completed (yet!), but it's certainly not your fault, and unlike some other infamous cases you've been very transparent and open about the whole process. So yeah, keep the money, it was supposed to feed you while you coded until you delivered the game, and while it's just an open source engine, it served its purpose. No need to give anything back.
Use this time to beef up on bank account and AI knowledge, and if in the future you have some time to spare, you can come back and complete the project. We'd be glad to see your vision come to life at last.
Thanks for all your hard work and effort, Gavan.

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Scott Duensing

6/14/2016 03:32:32 pm

Keep the money! The amount of knowledge contained in the code is well worth the slight asking price. :-)

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Vince Garcia

6/14/2016 04:05:10 pm

I'm probably the first to say so, but a refund would be much appreciated. I was looking forward to playing this game! But ah well. Maybe in a few years :)

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Gavan Woolery

6/14/2016 11:55:55 pm

ping me gavanw at gmail and I will provide you with a refund. Let me know what I owe you back among any/all contributions you made. :)

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Ray

6/14/2016 05:13:44 pm

Open sourced under MIT or looser would be all the 'refund' I'd want.

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Trevor Griffin

6/14/2016 05:19:01 pm

Definitely keep the money. This is EXACTLY how these things should happen. Game companies take note. I've seen AAA studios take money on kickstarter and abandon the project without so much as a "sorry" with nothing to show for it. You were transparent the whole way!

I just pledged $100 a month. I encourage others that read this on HackerNews to give what they can until Gavin can't say no :-)

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Silvan Spross

6/15/2016 12:01:14 am

Thanks for all your amazing work! And keep my money!

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Djurre

6/15/2016 12:46:53 am

Maybe an idea to put the remaining money into a platform which pays outside devs to develop your source further?
with something like https://www.bountysource.com/ or https://gratipay.com

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Malban

6/15/2016 12:53:11 am

Keep the money - Im sad that you will not finalize the product, but I am very glad it will move to open source, that is a finde thing todo!

Regards

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Naor

6/15/2016 01:47:42 am

Your work is amazing!
I got really hyped by hearing about you releasing the source!
Any idea when it will be out?
Thanks! :)

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Oursique

6/15/2016 02:14:39 am

Once again, I don't want any refund. Your work is worth more than I could provide.

Hope you'll continue to express your talents in that new job.

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Shelb

6/15/2016 02:31:50 am

Another "no thanks" for a refund. You have nothing to apologize for. It seems like your heart went into this thing, and eventually running out of funds means setback, not failure.
I hope you eventually find the means to get this thing to work out!

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Makach

6/15/2016 02:52:11 am

You are amazing and you have done an amazing job. Keep the amount I pledged. I had my value worth in blogposts, updates, videos.

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Disdanes

6/15/2016 06:56:50 am

I have really enjoyed the journey you've gone through in creating the engine, and I look forward to it being open sourced!

I definitely don't want a refund, I'll end up mailing it back to you in a check if I have to :)

Please consider releasing the code under the GPL v3 or later. This will make sure that no company will try and make it proprietary which denies everyone the chance to learn and use their changes!

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no

6/15/2016 09:39:57 am

Please don't do this.

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GuiSim

6/15/2016 10:03:44 am

That's now MIT works. You can't take the code and suddenly nobody else can use it.

GPL is very hard to work with, I would advise you stick to your original licensing plans of using MIT.

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Rudolf Olah

6/15/2016 12:36:23 pm

Actually yes that's exactly how MIT works.

A company can come along, take the code and *add new features and fix bugs* and keep their modifications proprietary so that you end up with a proprietary fork of the project.

Gavan Woolery

6/15/2016 09:56:42 pm

I generally favor MIT-ish over GPL-ish licenses. I think most people are in this boat. If someone wishes to make their changes private, its better than them making no changes at all. MIT-ish licenses give more incentive to make commercial products. I think GPL might turn off too many people unfortunately.

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Switch33

6/15/2016 05:07:50 pm

You can keep my money. You delivered a good voxel renderer which is fine.

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Item35457

6/16/2016 05:48:29 am

OpenAI? Frickin' awesome. Do you know what kind of thing you might be working on there specifically?

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jimmyff

6/16/2016 04:11:39 pm

I've loved following your project and sad to hear that you're taking a step back from it. Hopefully after a bit of time apart you might return to it?

No refund here, this has been one of my favorite kickstarters.

Thanks and good luck with the new job

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pol

6/17/2016 04:08:23 pm

OpenAI is lucky to get you and I am so excited to see what you do there. It's a perfect fit, I think. I think I'm more excited for that than I am with the sourcing of the VQ engine.

I only hope that one day the two converge and we get to see a proper AI driving a VQ world.... :)